I do not understand the tone of indignation in John McClaughry’s column. The “taxes, mandates and subsidies” he laments are crumbs thrown to a voting majority that is concerned about global climate change.

Nobody would ever enact anything that could stunt commerce as we know it today. Corporations and consumers have very little incentive not to burn carbon-based fuels. In fact, the government McClaughry denounces subsidizes carbon-based fuels far more heavily than it does renewable energy. Current taxes on gasoline do not compensate for the full cost of obvious environmental degradation (e.g., tainted runoff into waterways and cancers related to living near refineries), the military involvement required to secure our perceived share of the supply, and myriad secondary effects of a car-loving society.

I hope that McClaughry is correct, and the entire world is being fed a “heavy diet of terrors.” Nothing meaningful is being done about global climate change, anyway.